Report warns against Chinese companies' reliance on foreign technology

BEIJING, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- A report submitted for review to China's top legislature Sunday warned of heavy reliance on foreign technology by major enterprises of industrial control systems.

"The localization rate of equipment and control systems in major industrial companies should increase," said Wang Shengjun, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), when briefing lawmakers on cyberspace protection in the report.

Some key industrial control companies not only have their production control systems built by foreign companies, but allow related cyberspace security equipment to be foreign-produced and controled. And worse yet: Chinese staff even have no permission for configuration and administration, the report said.

The localization rate of production control systems in key industrial control enterprises falls even below 20 percent in certain provinces, it noted.

Wang proposed to intensify efforts in technology research and development to raise the localization rate gradually in order to improve Chinese companies' control over these important equipment.

China aims to set up an independently controllable technology system to ensure cyberspace security by 2020.

The government initiated a major project to improve cyberspace security in its five-year R&D plan for 2016-2020 period, vowing to inject research funds of about 1.38 billion yuan (about 210 million U.S. dollars).

Sunday's report was based on investigations between August and October to assess the Cybersecurity Law that took effect on June 1, and a decision on protection of online information introduced five years ago. Enditem